Coins Books

I thought there would be 50 spaces for the state quarters but there are 100. I was not aware that each quarter is made in two locations. Now I have to start looking for 50 more quarters!

I was disappointed and had to send it back as it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't realize that it was for quarters from both places they mint the state quarters and I just wanted a folder for one quarter for each state and I wasn't concerned that I had one from each place. I didn't realize they printed them in two places anyway. Richard Risener

IT WAS A LITTLE HARD TO PUT COINS IN, BUT FOR SURE THEY WON'T COME OUT. I LIKE THE EXTRA SPACES FOR THE OLD STYLE AND THE FUTURE STYLE COINS.

Hi! Ebay has a seller whom offers a high-quality, U.S.A. map/book which measures, when closed, approximately 13" X 16", with each State that truely SECURES a collectible quarter. Great for children and adults! Check it out! Only for a nominal investment in the amount of $12.95 plus shipping.

What a pain in the toosh... cheap plastic is supposed to "grab" the quarters if you "simply push down on them". HA, what a joke. I turned to washable kids glue to help them stay in. Very frustrating, especially for my 5yo.

Fist of all for 75$ I would have expected the catalogue to be in color not only the cover and the back...
Secondly for Ancient coins such as Greek, Roman & Byzantine, It would have helped if an approximate weight for each coin was included...

Fist I would say for 75.00 , I would expect color when it comes to showing gold coins in a hard bound edition. The only color is on the paper cover. The book lacks depth in the largest market for collectors, U.S.A. . Not impressive !

who specialize in gold coins minted prior to 1600. It would have been much better if the photos would have been in color. In todays new coin business and hobby it's essential to communicate not only the basic design of a coin but also it's unique look and that means color and high quality digital pictures. We are learing in the trade that these color photos are an essential part of the business, and students and collectors of coins want research material that also accurately portrays coins as well. Still a necessary book for the collector as well as advanced Numismatic library, let's hope we see a new release that we can all be happy with.

The book is poorly constructed and lacks a lot of acient middle eastern gold coins. The lack of color also makes me feel that I over paid for this book.

After reading the first review of this book I became so intrigued by it that I had to buy one for myself just to see. Alas, this thing is every bit as bad as stated earlier. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody except the following people: Collectors of numismatic books who have to have everything. Actually, the thing does have some redeeming qualities, basically the excellent reproductions of the various coins, notes, and trade tokens it lists, and in fact the quality of the printing itself. It also is a rich source of material that one might not have had pictures of, and definitely does expose one to a wide variety of coins, currency and tokens (US Military issue POGS) from the Middle East and tacky touristy paraphernalia manufactured for US military personnel. Having said this, the book does suffer from some very serious flaws and some irritating ones. The serious ones make it otherwise useless as a reference book, the irritating ones make one feel manipulated. The technical problems have to do with hard data: The book lacks any. There simply is no information about mintage sizes of any of the issues listed. Furthermore, the book suffers from a lack of comprehensiveness. It lists a broad panoply of coins, currency, tokens (POGS) and ephemera from various nations sprinkled across the globe yet it doesn't address any of them in any depth nor does there seem to be any logical reason or system to rationalize all of the material. One gets the impression that a bunch of stuff from a few disparate collections was thrown together and made into a book; stuff that was gathered in a random way from random countries in the Middle East and then catalogued without rhyme nor reason. The nauseating stuff is the way the book is stuffed with propaganda pictures of US Military personnel portrayed in various contexts all of which make them out to be salving angels come amongst the benighted for their maximum benefit and enlightenment. It's pretty schmaltzy and has no connection to numismatics. Frankly, when I buy a coin reference book I do not want something that is mostly full color photographs of little Arab kids begging for candy from GI's. I know it sounds peevish but I want a book about collectibles to be filled with stuff about collectibles.

Well, this is hard. I hate to downgrade this work, but I do it on two accounts, and I'm sure people will kick me for it.

One had best re-read that book title v-e-r-y carefully and digest the meaning before purchasing.

It is NOT: Coins & Currency Of The Middle East

It IS: A Descriptive Guide to Pocket Collectibles

This is a guide to a multitude of fairly common "collectibles" related to the Middle East fiasco - Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Restore Hope, Operation Re-election, Operation $4 Gas, etc. - that we've been embroiled in for the last 25 years. And "25 years" is a key phrase. You see, none of the coins or currency in this book goes back farther than 25 years (approximately) so it's absolutely NOT a modern "coin & currency" book.... It's a collectible guide, for cardboard pogs, old magazines, and oddball souvenirs - just the typical stuff that bored GIs buy at the PX and fob off on their relatives after having been stationed in the desert for 6 months, playing basketball and watching war movies.

For indeed, this is the stuff of modern warfare - 3 hot meals, suntan lotions, and CNN images of bombs going off somewhere else. Remote control.

Nevertheless, this is a collectibles book - the type of stuff aunt Martha will pull out of the closet and drawl, "Dang, lookit this Day-sart Storm caw-fee mug. That's got to worth a passel!".

Well, sorry, but the PX imported millions of them from China, just so young Joey could take it back home after the festivities were over, along with his "Stay Back 100 Meters or You Will Be Shot" beach towel , and the "Who's Your Baghdaddy?" t-shirt, available in Small or XXL only. Go figure.

But I digress. I was looking for, and it's my fault, a book on Middle Eastern coins and Currency. Now, most of the nations there have fairly limited issuances anyway. Qatar and UAE, for example, have a very few issues, dating to as early as the early 1960's, some of which is quite valuable. Now would it have been a strain to reduce some of the fluff and fill out the coins and currency section a bit? Nope - the authors felt it very important to detail AAFEES' (Army & Air Force Exchange Service, i.e. the company store in the war zone) pogs, which are cardboard tokens, again issued in the millions so that AAFEES can: (1) make change on their inflated prices, and (2) put cute pictures so every GI Schmoe will keep the pretty paper and invest their pocket change for a souvenir.

No on really knows how much AAFEES makes from never having pogs redeemed but it must be millions by now. In fact, even from a collecting standpoint, only the first issue was at all "limited edition", and these are quite rare. Subsequent issues are valued, even in this magnificent, at original issue price. So, I go to war, get a 25 cent pog, take it home and save it for 5 years and it's worth... 25 cents. IF I can find a buyer. Hmmmmm.

OK, so what is this book about? Kitschy treasure trash that most GIs throw or give away. Is it about anything cultural or numismatic to the Middle East? Nope, nothing - it's virtually devoid of anything that might approach collectible status, excepting the person who would buy 27 piece hunting knife collections on late-night TV that "you can sell to your friends and make a profit!"

I'm disappointed with Krause Publications, the premier publisher of numismatic, and to some degree, collectibles books. I have every reason to believe this was someone's idea of a good book to publish, but much like the Seinfeld Show, it's really a book about nothing.

Be sure of your needs. Within 2 minutes of receiving this book, after flipping through it, hoping beyond hope of the first 10 seconds of discovery, I resolved to give it away.

1. I order "The Official U.S. Mint Quarters 1965-1998 (P and D Album) (Hardcover)", but I received this one for the dimes. After I e-mail Amazon, they send me a e-mail apologizing abut the mistake and they send me another package with.... hold on..."The Official U.S. Mint Dime Coin Album".

Anyway it looks good.

2. "Lincoln Cents Folder #2, 1941-1974" is exactly what I expected: quality and the right one. ;)

3. "Child Locator- Brown" looks great. It's funny and good to have. Hopefully I'm not gonna use it.

Kids could not get the coins in the pages. When they did, then they could not get them back. These books are for collectors and not kids. For kids, we went and got the 'states' map book.

Hello. I'm Donn Pearlman, and I'm the author of "Best Buys in Rare Coins: What Expert Dealers and Collectors Advise." It was enjoyable to write, and at the time it came out -- way, way back in 1990 -- it was informative and useful.

Coin collecting is still fun, and people can make money with prudent purchases of rare coins and bank notes. There are still nuggets of useful info in my book, but it's long outdated. You won't find a word about the Internet in any chapters. You can buy the book at the deeply discounted prices you'll find for it these days, and read what experts have to say about various coins and get "a feel" for the enjoyment of the hobby.

Then, purchase one the very best, up-to-date books about numismatics: "The Coin Collector's Survival Manual" (fifth edition, 2006) by Scott A. Travers. That book will save you money, and perhaps make you money. I know Scott personally, and he's a straight shooter, consumer advocate. The New York Times once described him as "the Ralph Nadar of numismatics."

Happy collecting,
-donn-
Donn Pearlman

I purchased this book with high hopes of learning a lot about preserving and cleaning coins. (Even though I know you're generally not supposed to clean them.) While it has good coverage of the hazards of hydrogen sulfide (2H2S) or Hydrosulfuric acid it does not do justice to many other hazards, for example the problem of PVC soft flips and what, if anything, can be done for coins that have been stored in them.

An additional annoyance is that the book's primary solution to the problem of hydrogen sulfide is intercept shield bags that are no longer available.

The core problem though is that this book, as noted above, is a collection of 19 articles. However, the articles are not grouped or themed or linked in any manner and simply are presented in chronological order. This is a waste and makes in depth learning about its topics difficult. It would seem that basic editing of a volume such as this would suggest grouping the articles.

To the author's credit he is qualified to write a really impressive treatment of coin chemistry and he acknowledges that the book is not comprehensive in his introduction. The problem is that you would not know that from the description above, and that is why I was motivated to write this review.

Unless you are very new to coin collecting, this book has very little to offer. It does have some good, basic descriptions or discussions about US coins and their history, but if you are looking for what to pay for that next coin purchase you make, I would caution against relying only on this "guide".

When I purchased this book, I was most interested in reading the "Value Trends", but was disappointed to find little in that area that was helpful. The back cover in part reads: "It is the only book that gives you: (among several items) 'Price-performance graphs visually tracking a 12-year history of every series of US coins'." No such graphs were in the edition I received.

I would send the book back for a refund if it was worth my time. I would think most people would be better off buying the latest issue of the Grey Sheets or better yet Blue Sheets, that are available on the internet.

Why waste your money on this book, it's not worth it, instead invest in a better coin guidebook like KRAUSE's Standard Catalog of World Coins. Good luck.

Hey, my first review! Here goes - I am not sure what I was expecting when I bought this book, but I was definitely expecting more than what I got.

As a coin collector, I've been buying coins for a few years, and I have maybe a dozen of the basic numismatic books. Such as The "Red Book", Lange's Guide to Lincoln Cents, Photograde, and a few others, plus I regularly read Coin World, and the monthly magazines. I am at the point now where I have pretty much collected almost every coin from 1850 to date (about 50 coins shy of a complete date and mintmark collection), so I have started looking at picking up some of the more common errors and varieties. I was primarily looking for a guidebook that would list just that -- as the title (and the website) implies.

Well, this book DOES list some of the top die varieties and error coins by denomination. However, the list is far from complete, and many of the more well-known varieties (such as those listed in price guides) are omitted completely. But that is not my main complaint against this book -- after all, you can't list EVERYTHING, and a publisher has to draw the line somehwere. Okay, I can live with that.

My biggest gripe is about the printing quality of the book. One of the primary purposes of this book is to help identify die varieties and errors. Some of the pictures are decent, but a majority of them are too muddy, too pixellated, too small, or just plain too damn useless. The quality of the pictures is very low -- they appear to be black and white 300-dpi scans, and the printing quality is no better than xerox-level copying, so some of the pixels are starting to break down on the page. I've been involved in publishing and printing myself, and this is just plain sloppy work. The printing quality is no better than VANITY PRESS LEVEL printing job. For a book where the quality of the pictures is all-important, the publisher did a very poor quality on the printing job itself. You would expect 1200-dpi or better for the job, and hopefully higher quality paper, and to use an offset press instead of xeroxing, especially for the price-per-page on the book. For several of the pictures, the contrast is too low to make out the relevant details (such as trying to see that D mintmark below the S). Many of the pictures are completely unnecessary -- such as including a picture of the coin inside a slab -- the coin itself being nothing more than a dark circle. What's the point in showing the slab? Is the author just showing off his collection?

The accompanying text is short, sometimes useful and sometimes lacking. For example, it may mention the variety is listed in Breen, but so what? It may say there are five varieties of this error, but fails to identify what these five varieties are. It may give a single "value", but does not give that value in relation to others. I was hoping for some expert information, and all I got was some short text slapped next to a hard-to-identify picture.

The layout of the book itself is basic and passable. Somewhat on the amateur side, and that does make it a bit difficult to read the book easily. For an example of what I consider a good layout that is easy to read, check out Lange's "Guide to Lincoln Cents". Also, the multiple self-serving ads sprinkled through the book for the Moneybucks website was a bit annoying, especially when it's not entirely clear when the book content ends and the ad begins. Somewhat unprofessional.

In the final analysis, I found this book lacking. I guess I should have listened to my inner self and grabbed the "Cherrypicker's Guide" instead. There's very little information in this book that can't be found elsewhere. I bought the book for about fifteen bucks, and consider it fifteen bucks essentially wasted. I generously give the book a "2 star" rating, because it does have some good pictures of varities that I can use to identify coins, but not too many. And also, this book does have POTENTIAL. This book needs some serious revisions and a good editor to tear it apart, it could use multiple contributors to provide more relevant content (text and pictures), and MOST OF ALL, it can use higher production values. Drop the vanity press and go with a REAL printer, guys. Hopefully in a year or two, there will be a second edition. Until then, give this book a pass, unless you MUST have it for your numismatic collection.

It says all countries are listed, yet they are not. And those that are listed do not have all their coins. I found only one or two of the twenty or so I was looking for.